On the way he was feverishly alive with questions. Clifford’s thoughts had really not been off Mary Regan from the moment he had seen her come down the stairway; and now Uncle George’s vague warning—he knew Uncle George would not have spoken even so indefinitely unless there existed a very real situation—banished all else from his mind. Why hadn’t Mary Regan sent him word? What was behind her return in such a manner? What decision had she come to in regard to herself during these months? What decision in regard to him?
And this danger that Uncle George had hinted at—did it rise chiefly from the plans and influence of other persons? And who might these other persons be? And what might be the danger? Or might the danger rise partly out of the complexities, the contradictions, of her own nature?—that nature which had always so baffled and eluded him. But the doubt which lay behind this last question seemed disloyal, and he forcibly drove it from his mind. Mary Regan, he emphatically told himself, was the woman he had believed her to be! She could explain everything. Whatever might be wrong was due to the unknown other persons.
Slant-Face’s theater, though the hour was only ten, was dark. He hurried to Slant-Face’s apartment; but Slant-Face was not there, and his wife knew nothing of his whereabouts. Downtown again, Clifford began a tour of Slant-Face’s hang-outs; and at length he found him standing alone at the end of the Knickerbocker bar, before him a glass of buttermilk—a slender, smartly dressed person, whose immobile, lean face was given a saturnine cast by the downward slant of the left corner of his mouth.
“I saw your theater was closed, Slant-Face,” said Clifford. “What’s the matter?”
“Bradley.”
“Bradley! How could he have anything to do with closing your theater?”
“Bradley hasn’t forgot my little part in your stunt that got him out of the Department. He just waited—and laid his plans. While films were being run off and the house was dark, he had pockets picked in my place, or had people say their pockets were picked—pulled this three times. What with my reputation, this was enough for the Commissioner of Licenses, and he closed my joint.”
“That’s pretty rank. Bradley certainly does have a long memory—and a long arm!”
“This is a five-reel picture, and it’s not all been run off yet,” half growled Slant-Face through his thin lips. “In the last reel, some one is going to get him!” He sipped his buttermilk, then abruptly: “Clifford, because of what you’ve done for me, I’ve played it straight for a year. The straight game don’t pay—not for me. So I’m through. I guess you understand what comes next.”
“See here, Slant-Face, don’t be—”